Random Thoughts about Mud and Hard Work

Last Friday night I watched a movie called "Mud."  I liked the movie, although I must say that I hate the fact that directors must always include strong language that makes almost every movie not family friendly, even movies rated PG, but that's going down a whole 'nother trail that I won't get into at this time.  I realize that makes me seem prudish, and I probably am.  As with most things in popular culture, unless you are a hermit, you are sort of relegated to a 'chew up the meat and spit out the bones' mentality when engaging with a culture vastly different with the one you grew up in.

Mud was an adventure that reminded me an awful lot of a modern day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn story.  It is set in DeWitt, Arkansas and involves the adventures of Ellis and his best friend, Neckbone.  Southern nicknames are the best.  Everyone needs a friend named Neckbone!  Anyway, and I won't spoil the story, Ellis and Neckbone discover a boat high in the treetops on an island in the Mississippi River that they want to make into a camp.  Upon climbing into the boat, they find that there is already someone who has laid claim to their boat - an outlaw on the run who is named "Mud," and is played by Matthew McConaughey.  Mud needs some help and Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him and the tale develops from there.

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As I stated, Mud has a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn feel to it.  Ellis and Neckbone live on the river in a houseboat that is connected to the levee by a gangplank that rises and falls with the level of the river.  The vast range of the rise and fall of the level of the river seems to be in alignment with the boys' discoveries about love and loyalty, about good and evil.  Because of their hardscrabble upbringing, they grow up fast and are able to do things like clean fish, drive dirtbikes and boats, fix boat motors and work.  Hard, manual work that turns them into men at the age of 14 and they are expected to contribute to the family economy.

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One particular part in the movie that made me think was one in which Ellis and his father are having a talk one night about a difficult family situation.  It goes like this:

Senior: You know I love you?

Ellis: Yessir. I know.

Senior: I work you hard 'cause life is work. You know that?

Ellis: Yessir.

The Dad is a tough man and demands a lot of Ellis, but he loves his boy and his boy loves him. That just made me do a lot of thinking.  Thinking about Life and Work and Balance of the two.

We live in a modern culture where entertainment and leisure is highly valued.  Let me correct that, entertainment and leisure has always been valued, but the thing that has changed is work.  In Early America prior to the Industrial Revolution when we were overwhelmingly an Agrarian nation, hard manual labor such as tilling the soil, milking the cows, harvesting the crops was required.  Those things were essential for survival and the entire family was engaged in those roles.  The family was a productive unit.  The productivity was born out of necessity.

The family economy was multi-generational, with older generations and younger ones all working together to provide food for the table and spending money for necessities that could not be produced on the farm.  Family was important and everyone pitched in to help.  Even the youngest children contributed.  Contrast that to many children today that  are looked on as a burden to the family budget and as a result, people have children later - and fewer of them.  But in those days children contributed directly to the family (by providing labor) and large families were common.

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The Industrial Revolution brought about change.  Instead of producing things, families became largely consumers of things.  Because of mechanization, farming could be done with fewer people and children became liabilities instead of assets. Family members were sent to work off-farm to earn wages to purchase family necessities.  This displaced people from the land and distanced them from one another.

Although the family economy still exists in some parts of the country, it is largely gone.  I realize that I'm waxing nostalgic about a bygone era - one that I didn't really live in, although I worked on our family farm growing up.  I'm sitting in a climate-controlled room, typing on a computer and I fully appreciate the niceties and conveniences of modern life.  However, I am convinced we are missing something.

We've always given our children chores to do - things that they were responsible for. They were always responsible for doing everyday chores like gathering eggs or feeding the animals.  They were also given extra things to do that were seasonal in nature like harvesting the garden, picking pecans, gathering sticks after a storm or getting hay in the barn.  Work like this is needed on a farm and was expected in normal agrarian family life.

But what about today?  What about when no one else does this?  When kids play travel tournament ball or play video games or sit in front of the TV?  None of these things are inherently wrong or bad, but scooping poop out of the barn is not going to compete with playing on the X-box in the eyes of a child.

And therein lies the struggle for balance.  How in an agrarian lifestyle do you balance the needs of labor with entertainment/leisure?  Although we never deprived our kids of extracurricular activities, we never did as much as other parents did to entertain their kids with full schedules of activities. Will our kids resent us for that?  Will they look back at me like a cruel taskmaster?  Will they look back at their childhood with regret when compared to their peers?  Will they want to have anything to do with farming or the agrarian lifestyle?  Or us?  I don't know.

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I'd like to think that they would look back longingly and lovingly with good memories of their somewhat 'different' upbringing - much as I do, but only time will tell.

Although I agree with Ellis' Daddy when he told him that "I work you hard 'cause life is work," there is balance between work and leisure.  Offering our kids outlets for entertainment and leisure while at the same time helping them develop a strong work ethic and maintaining that balance is a critical and crucial endeavor for parents.  Mud was a movie about love and love lost, about dealing with disappointment and hurt, about redemption and about growing up.  Just as the boat high up in the tree seemed to be out of reach for Ellis and Neckbone, finding the delicate balance between fun and work sometimes proves to be the same for me.